


make love, not war

by Carrogath



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: F/F, Hurt/Comfort, Post-Canon, Pre-Timeskip | Academy Phase (Fire Emblem: Three Houses)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-08
Updated: 2020-06-08
Packaged: 2021-03-04 05:47:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,014
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24598501
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Carrogath/pseuds/Carrogath
Summary: Edelgard is injured in an attack by Those Who Slither in the Dark, falling victim to a strange poison not known anywhere inside of Fódlan. Wanting to keep the princess's injury a secret so as to not worsen the already strained relations between the Empire and the Church, Rhea takes it upon herself to nurse Edelgard back to health—and to possibly guide her away from a decision she may well one day regret.
Relationships: Edelgard von Hresvelg/Rhea
Comments: 7
Kudos: 145
Collections: FE3H Kink Meme





	make love, not war

**Author's Note:**

> FE3H kink meme fill. Rather plot-heavy (thanks to Rhea's 1000+ year old backstory); apologies for any inaccuracies in lore.
> 
> Prompt is as follows: 
> 
> _So based off what Catherine and Jeralt say, Rhea has some amazing bedside manner. She’s so good at taking care of other people that she’s accidentally fostered a lot of crushes. And Edelgard is no exception._
> 
> _Basically: Edelgard gets really injured during the academy phase (can be from an accident or demonic beasts, or really whatever floats your boat) and Rhea personally nurses her back to health. Edelgard then develops a crush on Rhea. Can be silly or realistic! I just want Rhea being super kind and doting on Edelgard._
> 
> _Also I would *love* it if you include a flash forward to Edelgard being married to Rhea and it turns out everything was way easier with Rhea on her side. But this isn’t a dealbreaker if not included. Just as long as there’s no character bashing op is ok._
> 
> _Tbh this entire prompt is because I saw the phrase “make love not war” and my brain said rheagard_

Edelgard nearly dies the same day Jeralt does.

The reports come into Rhea’s office, one after the other: Jeralt is dead; the Adrestian princess is critically injured; the assassin—an Agarthan named Kronya, disguised as a former Academy student named Monica von Ochs—escaped in the aftermath of the attack. Seteth is assigned the task of tracking Kronya’s whereabouts. And Byleth, unable to protect either her father or her house leader in the same day, refuses summons after summons to the audience chamber.

The substance that killed Jeralt is the same one that injured Edelgard—poison, not native to Fódlan or Brigid or Almyra, but bearing a resemblance to a type of plant found mainly in Morfis: “the god killer,” also known as dragonsbane. It skimmed Edelgard’s side before plunging into Jeralt, seeping into her blood. Manuela is unfamiliar with the treatment, as is Edelgard’s retainer, Hubert. But Rhea knows. She orders Edelgard to be taken from the infirmary to the third floor of the main building, in the guest room adjacent to Rhea’s own private quarters. Hubert and the other Adrestian students agree to keep quiet about Edelgard’s injuries, for the moment—taken the wrong way, the news could sour already worsening relations between the Church and the Empire. Rhea encounters less resistance than she was expecting from any of them, when she insists on tending Edelgard’s wounds personally.

More than likely, they all feel helpless to do otherwise.

The first thing Rhea notices are the scars. Agarthan creations, of course—half the Empire is in the Agarthans’ pockets, and the half that isn’t will soon find themselves overtaken by the half that is. The white hair? Agarthan, the product of extensive Crest experimentation. The purple eyes? Arundellian. She looks much like her mother did. Byleth’s muted absence leaves room in Rhea’s mind to be filled by this new curiosity. She’s seen many children before—Nabatean and Agarthan alike—but Edelgard has Seiros’s blood and Thales’s hair and her mother’s Crest. She’s an abomination, a monstrosity. Proof that at the core of the Adrestian Empire lies the worst kind of rot. Rhea knows that this child has been influenced by them, will kill for them, will die for them. She has known nothing else.

Still, she thinks, as she holds a hand over Edelgard’s injury and examines her blood with white magic, there might be hope for this one yet.

* * *

Edelgard sleeps for three days. Flayn arrives the first two days with cold water and a washcloth to wipe away the sweat as her fever worsens; it breaks on the third.

Edelgard wakes, and when she does, Rhea recognizes with painful familiarity the terrified look in her eyes. Her left arm is numb up to the shoulder, and when she moves her left side, it flops uselessly.

“Wh-what…” she gasps, “what did you to me?”

“I helped you,” Rhea responds. “They were the ones who hurt you.” She pauses. “Your so-called ‘allies.’”

Edelgard reaches over and presses her fingers along her bandaged wound. “Kronya…” Then she glares at her.

“Why did you get in the way of her? I can’t imagine it would have been conducive to your plans to try to protect Sir Jeralt.”

Her mouth opens, and then closes.

“Was it Byleth?”

She looks away.

“Were you looking for another way?”

Her teeth clench.

“Your treatment is being kept a secret from your father. From the Empire. Inasmuch as it can. You are safe here.”

Edelgard laughs, humorless and raw, rolling onto her right side on the bed. “I am not.”

“I am not the one who tried to hurt you.”

“You already have.”

“More than Thales?” Rhea leans over her, watching her face as it morphs from one expression to another.

Children are so easy to read.

“You wouldn’t understand.” She forces herself upright, but her head looks away, defiant, down at the sheets.

“What do I not understand?”

“This system. Your system. The one you’ve enforced for over a thousand years. It’s wrong.”

“Oh, I know as much,” Rhea hisses.

“And the subjugation?” Edelgard’s voice trembles. “The suppression of information? Obscuring Church history? Lying about who you even are?” She laughs again. “The truth means nothing to you. Only power, and power alone. If not that, your gods-forsaken mother.” She presses her lips together. “If you really wanted to help, you would step down from your position and let humans decide for themselves how they want to be ruled.”

“I see you’re feeling much better than you did when you first arrived here,” Rhea says dryly.

Edelgard throws back her head, lying back down against the mattress, and laughs. “You don’t trust us. Understandable. You think we’ll turn against your mother again?” She glares at her with a wild grin, and Rhea resists the urge to wrap her hands around her pale, scarred throat.

“We have the same enemy.”

“There is no resistance without the Agarthans. We don’t have the same enemy unless it’s you.”

“I want to help. Truly, I do.”

“You want to protect your position. You want to perpetuate what horrors already exist. You do not want to help; you want to ensure that everyone remains under your rule for the rest of your ridiculously long life.”

“I don’t.” Rhea’s voice shakes, and when it does, Edelgard stares at her.

Their gazes meet, and Rhea sees not Thales in her expression, not Patricia, not Ionius—but Wilhelm, having looked upon the face of a terrible, monstrous dragon for the very first time. The look silences her.

“Then what do you want?” Edelgard’s voice is low. “Vengeance for your mother? To stamp them out of existence?”

“I want the impossible,” Rhea says, and swallows absently. “And that is why I will never have it.”

* * *

Edelgard can barely stand, so Rhea forces her back into bed the moment her legs give out. Byleth is on bereavement leave until the end of the week, so Edelgard completes written assignments from Professor Manuela along with the rest of the Black Eagles class. She eats her first meal—seasoned porridge and a quarter loaf of bread—ravenously, thanks Rhea begrudgingly, and remains completely silent as Rhea leaves to attend to her other duties.

The fourth day, Rhea has Edelgard’s room checked for notes, traps, or anything hidden that the Agarthans or Imperial spies may have planted in her room. She finds two coded notes and a trap—disarmed by one of Shamir’s agents—the latter more a warning to Rhea than anything meant to actually succeed. Two more guards of Catherine’s choosing are posted by Edelgard’s door.

On the fifth, Edelgard recovers enough to be able to take a few steps. She can move the fingers in her left hand, though the rest of her left arm remains leaden. She picks disinterestedly at her fish stew when Rhea tries to watch her eat it, but when Rhea leaves for a meeting and returns an hour later, the bowl is empty.

Rhea sits at the foot of Edelgard’s bed. “The Relics,” she says quietly, “are made from the bones of my kin. By human hands.”

“Using Agarthan technology,” says Edelgard, sitting up. “Why are you telling me this?”

“Crests, too,” she continues, “are a sign of a pact between human and Nabatean—man and dragon. Given freely to a worthy recipient. Though there are other, artificial ways to manifest them. We used to live together. When my mother was still alive.”

“And humans were responsible for ruining it,” replies Edelgard. “This idyllic harmony of yours.”

“Nothing lasts forever,” she says, and looks at her. “Not peace. Nor war. Nor my reign. Nor my life.”

Edelgard is quiet.

“I do love your kind. But it’s not the right sort of love, is it? I can’t return things back to the way they were. Nor can I keep them this way forever. What we have now is unfit for human prosperity, I agree. But it’s not because I hate you. It’s because I wanted to be the one to help.” Rhea laughs quietly. “It made sense, a long time ago, to keep those sworn to my brothers and sisters closest to me. But the Agarthans—Fraldarius, Gautier, Lamine, Goneril, all of those people… When we won the war against Nemesis, I offered amnesty to them. Those were long, bloody years. Establishing the noble houses was a way to make peace, with those who would have it. If you bring war to this continent, Edelgard, you will not be facing me, but Seiros.”

“What difference does it make?”

“It will be devastating. You know nothing of the chaos you will bring forth. You know nothing of my history with the Agarthans.”

Edelgard bares her teeth. “But it will bring change. Change you have denied us for over a thousand years. Change that desperately needs to happen. You have accomplished nothing. Nothing but misery and stagnation. You have given the Agarthans nothing but time to prepare. You could have saved me.” She clamps her mouth shut.

Rhea stares at her, and then sucks in a breath and looks away.

“Where were you?” Edelgard fists her hands in the sheets. “If you were so desperate to help? Where were you? Didn’t you know the Agarthans were responsible for the Tragedy of Duscur? Why did you cover it up? Why did you…” Her body trembles with anger. “Nothing you do makes any fucking sense, Rhea. You say you want to help, and then you find a scapegoat and ignore the problem. Like you did with Christophe. With Lonato. I don’t want to start a war as much as you don’t want to rule. But both are necessary, aren’t they?” Edelgard glares at her. “Yours, to defend your so-called ‘peace.’ Mine, to prove to you what a sham that peace of yours is.” Her voice cracks. “You think the Agarthans are just going to go away if you ignore them? Or…” Her breath seeps out in a labored hiss. “Was Byleth your plan?”

Rhea knows she cannot hide the expression on her face.

“Fool,” says Edelgard, and laughs.

* * *

The sixth day is perhaps the strangest of them all. Rhea is out for most of the day, only returning to Edelgard’s room in the evening to check on her injuries. Edelgard sits on the bed paging through a book that Rhea doesn’t recall giving her. She doesn’t press the issue. She sits at the foot of the bed, as she had done the day before, and says nothing.

Edelgard shuts the book. “I can walk,” she says. She moves her left arm from the elbow down, though the range of movement is still obviously restricted. “I want to return to class tomorrow.”

“It is my understanding that you’ve taken a liking to your professor.” Rhea’s tone is placid.

Edelgard chuckles, looking at the book. “It’s nothing compared to what you feel. I’m worried about her, besides. Aren’t you?” Her eyes flicker up to Rhea’s face.

“Worry? No.” As long as Rhea is being honest with Edelgard, she’ll be honest about this too. “I worry for—”

“We have the same Crest, Byleth and I. You did something to her.”

“I saved her,” Rhea says evenly. “I…”

“You don’t see her for who she is.”

Rhea stands. “And you do?”

“She’s not your mother, Rhea,” Edelgard replies. “I know that much. She doesn’t know anything. She certainly can’t give you what you want, unless what you want is more power.” She purses her lips and looks away.

“Whatever you feel for her, you owe that to me.”

Edelgard sucks in a breath and pushes herself off the bed, standing upright. “Why does she have the Crest of Flames? That power. And Jeralt’s odd behavior before he died—he didn’t trust you at all! There are rumors that she doesn’t have a heartbeat. And the special attention you pay to her is glaringly obvious. She may be Jeralt’s daughter, and she might be an experienced mercenary, but what about either of those things made her qualified to be a combat instructor? You wanted her for a reason.”

“And what would that be?”

“The Crest of Flames is the Crest of the goddess. I know how I came into mine. But hers?”

“You don’t know,” says Rhea. “Good. That means that Thales is unlikely to know, either.”

Edelgard takes a step toward her, defiant. “I bet it has something to do with that stupid ceremony. Always calling for your mother. You’re a thousand years old, and yet you’re still acting like a child.”

“You know nothing of which you speak,” Rhea’s voice is low, threatening.

Edelgard laughs again. “I know enough. I know enough that my understanding, however incomplete, is less of a lie than a truth. If you’re so unsure of yourself, then why not ask for help? Are we too naive? Too short-lived? Too greedy? Too stupid? Afraid we’ll expose you for the monster that you are? I hate Thales. I don’t want to fight for him, but I know that doing nothing would be even worse. If you don’t trust us to help you? Then someone else is inevitably going to take advantage.” Edelgard clutches her hand to her chest. “We’ve spent too much time together. I know too much. _You_ know too much. I am disposable. What’s one more century to you? To him? What’s another generation lost? It won’t mean anything to either of you if I wage war against the Church and lose. Think about it, Rhea. You don’t love humans. You’ve experienced too much. You’re numbed to our pain.”

“That isn’t true.”

“You and Thales are the same.” Edelgard takes another step closer. “Byleth and I are pawns in your games. What difference does it make to you if either of us die? It means nothing. All you care about is your power and your revenge, and your fool mother.” Edelgard looks her in the eye. “You have an eternity. I have twenty years.” A tear slides down her face. “Maybe less. Maybe you are sincere. I don’t know. I don’t care enough to find out. I don’t have the time to doubt myself, much less change my mind about you.”

“Edelgard.” Rhea takes one step, and then another, until she’s within arm’s reach of her. Neither of them move. “Do you resent me for saving your life?”

“Fuck you!” Edelgard sinks to her knees and crumples to the ground, muffling her sobs with her right hand.

Rhea falls to her knees. Her cape billows around her, opening wide before collapsing against her shoulders. She stills the tremors in her voice. “You would do well,” she says finally, leaning in so that Edelgard might hear her, “to have the Immaculate One on your side.”

* * *

On the seventh day, Hubert arrives in the morning to escort Edelgard back to her room. Byleth resumes teaching, and requests to help in the investigation into Jeralt’s killer. One week passes, and then another. It turns out that no investigation is necessary, because Edelgard already knows where they are.

They meet in Rhea’s room. Edelgard pulls up a stool by Rhea’s bed and watches her as she approaches, silent.

“The Sealed Forest, is it?” Rhea sits down on the bed.

“Thales believes you’re holding me captive,” Edelgard says, without preface.

“Am I?” Rhea looks at her.

Edelgard’s expression is hard, confused. “You all are. This whole world is my prison.”

“We will take revenge on them for what they did to you.”

“I don’t want revenge,” Edelgard retorts.

“Then, what is it that you want?” Rhea asks.

“I want what you want.”

Rhea has to think about her response. “You want the impossible.”

“I want freedom from my responsibilities and an end to the stalemate. I want the Agarthans defeated and their technology seized. I want to make the world whole again. You’ll tell me that everything I want is unattainable—”

“No,” Rhea gently corrects her, “I will not.”

Edelgard glares at her. “Then what?”

“I tell myself that it’s impossible. But you? Do you really believe that what you want is impossible to obtain?”

“Of course not,” Edelgard says.

“What is impossible for me may not be impossible for you. Creativity is not my strong suit. I’m sure you understand that. But you are young and unknown and full of possibility. I don’t know what Thales’s plans are for you. It may benefit me not to know, as of now. If Thales believes that we are enemies and that I’m interrogating you for this information, then let him.”

“Oh.” Edelgard looks surprised.

“Edelgard.”

She sits up at the sound of her name, back rigid.

“You are closest to the enemy.” Rhea stands. “And you are correct. You have managed in a few short years what I have been unable to do for hundreds. I can’t take your place. No one can.” Her voice lowers, then. “Hate me if you must. Your success is worth more to me than your feelings.”

Edelgard opens her mouth, then closes it again. She glances off to the side. “How much did you know? About Ionius’s children going missing. We were held captive for years. It should have been obvious.”

Rhea turns away, walking toward the window. “It would bring you no comfort to know the truth.” She pulls the curtains away, and a thin shaft of sunlight pours through.

“But did you know?” Edelgard asks. Her voice is pitched with desperation. “Did you care?”

Rhea turns to her and smiles—a mournful, dejected thing, turned gray by the winter sun. “If I could have saved you with a thought, my dear, I would have done so many times over.”

* * *

Byleth returns from the Sealed Forest with green in her eyes and green in her hair. In her excitement Rhea almost forgets the agreement she made with Edelgard. She spends the majority of her free time with Byleth, who seems hardly any different save the cosmetic changes. It’s only when Edelgard leaves for the Empire alone that Rhea realizes that something is off.

One week passes, and then another. News of Edelgard’s coronation reaches the monastery, and congratulations are passed around, but the atmosphere on the grounds is tense. They haven’t discussed what might happen if the Empire declares war, not really. Rhea simply trusts herself to live through it all, as she always has. Even though she recognizes that Byleth must have absorbed some of Sothis’s power, she doesn’t appear to _be_ Sothis by any stretch of the imagination. All her plans are falling apart, and if there is anything Rhea hates more than being wrong, then it is being uncertain. She does not worry, precisely, that Thales knows she has been talking to Edelgard. The Agarthans are toothless without her. Edelgard is safe. Byleth has the power of the goddess. If anyone is in danger, it’s Rhea herself.

Rhea cares little for own safety.

The night before Byleth and her class are scheduled to visit the Holy Tomb, Rhea is awoken by a loud rapping on her bedroom door.

“It’s Edelgard,” says the voice through the door.

Rhea doesn’t question how she made her way up to the third floor at this time of night. She simply lights a candle, unlocks the door, and looks down at her.

Edelgard is still in her Academy uniform and cape. “Let me in.”

Rhea laughs and takes a step back. Edelgard shuts the door behind her. Then she takes a deep breath, and exhales.

“Tomorrow,” Edelgard says.

“Yes?” Rhea asks.

“It’s happening tomorrow.”

“I’m afraid I don’t understand what you mean.”

“Everything.” Edelgard shuts her eyes. “We’ll be enemies starting tomorrow.”

“Ah.”

“Thales is planning to capture the monastery.”

Rhea smiles. “The monastery means nothing to him.”

“Of course,” Edelgard scoffs, “he means to capture _you_. Byleth has been informed of our plans, as have Hubert and Shamir. I’ve been told that Claude may be a dependable ally, as well. But I may not be able to protect you for a very long time.”

Rhea is quiet.

“What is your plan,” she finally asks, “should the monastery fall?”

“I’ll sabotage my own efforts.”

“Madness.”

“The Agarthans are the real enemy. There’s no reason for the Empire to fight. I’ll allow Thales to think I’m incompetent, and then form a resistance against him once he ousts me from power. We’ll conduct our war from the shadows—as my uncle has taught me to do.”

“And where do I figure in all of this?” Rhea asks, curiously.

“If the monastery is successfully defended? Obviously you’ll be leading the war effort. If it’s captured and you’re taken prisoner? Then the Church, the Kingdom, and the Alliance will all rally around you. Ideally they would consolidate their efforts, and form a united front against the Empire. The time spent fighting in that war should be enough for us to decipher Thales’s true aims.”

Rhea taps her foot. “A false war seems like an egregious loss of life.”

“The Empire is already in the hands of the Agarthans. As far as Thales is concerned, I’m nothing more than a puppet.”

She folds her arms. “You’re counting on him to underestimate you?”

“You did.”

“Ah.” Rhea steps in closer. “But I learned my lesson. Didn’t I?”

Edelgard’s face turns red in the candlelight.

“The goddess,” Rhea begins quietly, “is a being of unfathomable power. She may not exist in corporeal form any longer, but the body is not the same as the spirit. She made us—her Children—in the likeness of mankind, so as to better understand you. We were never meant to rule, but to serve.” She pauses. “I often find myself wondering what would have happened if we had approached your kind with humility, rather than condescension.”

Edelgard grins. “If you think that would have changed anything, then you don’t know humans at all.”

“Edelgard.”

Edelgard looks up at her with uncertain eyes.

“You are questioning your decision to cooperate with me. I can see it.” Rhea cups her face with both hands. “What’s wrong? What do you have to lose?”

She gives her a watery smile. “Everything. Everything.” She reaches up and takes Rhea’s hands in her own, not moving them from where they rest against her jaw, her cheekbones, her temples. She laughs and turns her head to the right, seizing Rhea’s wrist and pressing kisses into her palm. “I shouldn’t believe a word that comes out of your mouth, but I do. It’s wrong. It’s wrong; it shouldn’t be like this, but it is.” Edelgard falls to her knees, and when she tugs on Rhea’s wrist with unexpected strength, Rhea stumbles down with her. “Your ears are pointed, Rhea.”

She gasps, and reaches out to feel that her right ear is, in fact, exposed.

She takes Rhea’s hand with both of her own, straightening out the fingers, and then folds them, one by one. “I am always open to excitement. Surprises. But not like this.” Her touch is reverent. Feverish. “I’m very impulsive,” Edelgard warns. “And your skin is very smooth. You shouldn’t touch people like that if you don’t want them to want you.”

“You were awake?” Rhea asks. She suddenly feels as though she doesn’t know Edelgard as well as she’d previously believed.

“Tell me this was some devious plan of yours,” Edelgard says, pressing Rhea’s hand into her neck, her shoulder. She closes her eyes. “Tell me you did this on purpose. Tell me I’m destined for failure.”

Rhea squeezes at the crook of her neck and her shoulder, feeling the hard muscle underneath her clothes, underneath her skin. She feels like a lot of people that Rhea has touched in the past. “Would it help?” she finally asks. “Or would it make you doubt yourself even more?”

“You don’t care about my feelings at all, do you?”

“I do not.”

Edelgard pulls away, stands up, and smiles at her. Her expression is hard. “Is even your bedside manner calculated?”

“I’m tired of the fighting,” Rhea says. “Your victory against the Agarthans will outlive you. Your feelings won’t.”

She sweeps away, her cape billowing behind her. “I agree,” she says. But her voice betrays the lie in her words.

* * *

Humans are strange creatures, Rhea decides.

She stares at the ring on her finger. It’s the first time she’s been married in her many long years, but then—she hasn’t met anyone like her wife in all the time she’s been alive. Their happiness is well-deserved, however fleeting it may be. She suns herself on the balcony adjacent to their shared bedroom, looking down on the courtyard below. Faint memories of Zanado appear in her mind, and if she closes her eyes, she can almost see them.

“Rhea.”

Rhea turns her head, remaining in her seat. She doesn’t remember how old Edelgard is now. Somewhere in her thirties, she thinks. It hasn’t been that long. Her face is still young, her movements still spry. Another ten years—maybe twenty, given who she’s looking at—and she’ll begin to slow. Or maybe Edelgard will surprise her, and she’ll live and live and live.

Edelgard bends down, presses a kiss to her lips. Rhea indulges her, holding her head in place. “Unfair,” Edelgard says, breaking away to take a seat beside her, “that you don’t age.”

“I do,” says Rhea. “But slowly. I could do the same—”

“Absolutely not.” Edelgard pauses, glancing her over. “If anything I would have you age faster. I’d rather die with you sooner than live with you later.”

Rhea laughs. “Why?”

“Beauty is ephemerality,” Edelgard declares. “Look at you. You hardly react to anything anymore. You’re full of stories, but they’re all so old. You know too many people who are already dead. You’re painfully reluctant to accept anything new. You’re worse than Petra’s grandfather.”

“You are still quite new to me,” says Rhea, looking her over appreciatively.

Edelgard blushes, but her expression doesn’t change.

“You’ve hardly lived at all, and yet you act like you know everything.”

“You’ve lived for far too long, and yet you still know nothing,” Edelgard huffs.

“I knew enough to win us the war.”

Her expression softens. She reaches out to grasp Rhea’s hand. “I suppose,” she says, squeezing her fingers. She runs her thumb along the knuckles. Her eyes waver, intense and full of longing.

She’s still so eager.

She cups Rhea’s cheek in one hand and brings her forward, but when Edelgard leans in to kiss her, Rhea pulls away.

Edelgard blinks in surprise. “What is it?”

Rhea is quiet. It takes her a long time to gather her thoughts—the effects of old age, perhaps?

“When you were sickened by Kronya’s poison,” she says, slowly. “I’d thought you were asleep the whole first three days. But you remembered me caring for you, didn’t you?”

Edelgard’s eyes look in every other direction but at her.

“I didn’t do it out of love.”

Edelgard shrinks into herself. “I know that.”

“Or, well, I suppose I did, in a manner of speaking.” Rhea looks out onto the balcony. “I pitied you.”

Edelgard’s voice, surprisingly, is still full of spite. “Of course you did.” She blinks at her, and then looks out in the same direction. “I didn’t even know it was you, at first. I was just grateful to be alive—whatever that meant at the time. Your touch spoke of precision, of practice. I don’t think you could have done that had you known I was awake. You could have…” She pauses. “I don’t know what I thought. I wanted to be no one to you. Just another patient. That’s why it was such a shock when I woke up that day. I wanted to be no one forever. Just another face in the crowd. You are kind to strangers.” Edelgard says the last sentence haltingly. The second half goes unspoken: _You would not be kind to me._

“El,” Rhea breathes. She reaches over and touches Edelgard’s face, and sees it as it was that day: still and wan with sickness. She had been nothing then—just a weak, sickly little girl. And Rhea had loved her and wanted to help her, as she’d loved and wanted to help all helpless things. She’d been criticized in the past for being a hypocrite: for healing and forgiving with one hand while hurting and condemning with the other. For only loving her enemies when they no longer posed a threat. For only seeming harmless around those who caused no harm. “El,” Rhea says again, letting go, “why did you take that chance? Why did you trust me?”

Edelgard looks out again, in the direction of the sun as it dips past the roof of the palace. “You knew. You already knew. You understood my feelings perfectly, before I told you anything at all. Of course you did. You’re over a thousand years old. But to realize that you were just as helpless against them as I—I… I don’t know.” She swallows. “Fear does strange things to people. But hope does even stranger.”

“It was you.” Rhea turns in her seat, so that she’s facing her. “Let me make it very clear to you, Edelgard: you were the difference. A thousand years meant nothing in the face of your vision, and yours alone.” She smiles. “Thank you for including me in that. In your world. For making a space for me in your heart.” She presses their shoulders together, and then leans in, burying her face in Edelgard’s neck. “I love you.” She can’t hold it in anymore. “Thank you for proving me wrong.”

A minute passes, and then two. She can feel the bob of Edelgard’s throat as she swallows again. “Remind me,” says Edelgard. Her voice vibrates against Rhea’s forehead. “Remind me why I fell for you again?”

“My touch, was it?” Rhea grabs her shoulder and pulls herself up so that they’re face to face, grinning. “My, but you are a greedy little thing. Humans never change.”

But she gives and gives and gives.


End file.
